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7 Books for Pastoral Ministry

(This is part of a note I just wrote to the students in Lester Ruth's worship course at Duke Divinity School. The note included remarks about their final projects, the Global Songs for Worship book, and practices of "naming God." It was a long note. I thought I'd share the recommended book list here. It'll be nothing new for most pastors, but perhaps an encouragement for others to pick up a book that looks interesting.)

RECOMMENDED PASTORAL BOOKS

I realize most of you have enough un-read books on your shelves
to last you till Jesus returns in glory. That's good. A healthy pastor is a
pastor who keeps learning. Healthy pastors are those who keep
themselves humble enough to admit that they are students, rather than experts, till their dying days. Mindful that your night-tables are full and your days short,
I'll still recommend to you books that stood me well during my years as a
pastor. These are books that I returned to over and over as I sought to
shepherd people well. Take them or leave them as you see fit.

1. Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of
Christ (This is my one-stop shop for discipleship. In it Willard tackles the basic dimensions of human life--will and mind, emotions and
sociality, etc. It's heavy lifting at times but immensely rewarding, especially
for a small group that's willing to stick with it to the end. If you want a
barnstormer, showstopper book on discipleship, read his Divine Conspiracy. It's
not for the weak of heart, but this book radically transformed the
way I viewed the Christian life.)

2. Larry Crabb, Understanding People: Why We Long for Relationship (I
asked a respected counselor once, If I
only had time to read one book on how to counsel people, which would that be?
He suggested this one, and the last two chapters, on the evidence
and essence of a mature Christian life, are worth the price of admission alone.
It's material that I've read and re-read innumerable times).

3. Gerald May, Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing
of Addictions(People have them. They have them in
abundance--addictions not only to alcohol and power but also to work, sex, performance,
attention, and self-preservation, and it's a smart pastor who asks himself
[in my case] what his addictions are before he seeks to help diagnose other
people's addictions and to bring, by God's grace, healing to those areas of their life).

6. Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home(If
you ever wondered whether there was a book that confirmed your suspicion that
there were in fact more than four ways of praying--adoration, confession,
thanksgiving, supplication--then wonder no more. This is the book. From the
"prayer of tears" to the "prayer of relinquishment" to the
ordinary prayers and the sacramental prayers--Fosters offers both a tour de force on prayer and a tour
through the history of Christian practice of prayer. Deeply moving material.

7. Richard Swenson,Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial and Time Reserves to
Overloaded Lives (When was the last time you said,
"Gosh, I wish I had more time!" or "Where did the time go?"
How often have you heard pastors complain about how busy they were? Or how they
wish they could slow down, do less, resist manic schedules, enjoy a more
measured pace to life? What if I told you it didn't have to be that way? What
if I told you that pastors didn't have to live a roiling stressful life? What
if I told you that the exhausting, time-crunched pace that pastors keep is,
consciously or subconsciously, of their own choosing, that they don't have
to live their lives with barely any margin to spare? That's Swenson's
thesis and, with a pricked conscience, a very compelling one. While not addressed exclusively to pastors, it's a book that we should move to the top of the pile if we wish not only to tell Christians how to live well but also to model that kind of life ourselves.

While this isn't an exhaustive list and while it
doesn't include a single book outside of the 20th century (a crying shame, I
confess), it's a collection of books that have indelibly shaped my vocation
as a pastor. I'm grateful to the friends who have brought these books to my
attention and I pray that they prove of some help to you in your ministry in
years to come.

Lastly, it's been a pleasure and an honor being your TA this
semester. I look forward to seeing you in the hallways, as the case may be.
Perhaps I'll even find myself one day sitting in the pew at the back of your
church, listening to you preach and watching you make deft use of things you
learned in class. If that happens, don't be surprised if you hear a loud amen
erupting in the air.

Knowing that you're the future of the church gives me great
hope.

Easter blessings to you all,

David

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Comments

Thanks for this. I've been asking various pastors and professors what books they'd recommend and I'll be sure to add these to potential reads. One that I heard multiple times is Neuahaus's "Freedom for Ministry" so I'm going to start with it.

Jonathan, that's great, and thanks for the heads-up on *Freedom for Ministry*.

Tim, you are absolutely dead on. It's the old ACTS method of prayer, in which I was trained early on and which continues to serve as a helpful framework, though perhaps not the only one. Love your dictionary. :)